


Each A Glimpse, And Gone Forever

by lost_spook



Category: Chalet School - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 13:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor can't help trying to right wrongs, even the small ones, like an obviously young and unhappy fellow traveller on the train.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Each A Glimpse, And Gone Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Just a note on the crossover: I hope it can be read without any knowledge of the Chalet School, from a DW point of view. 
> 
> For those who do know CS, the ref for this bit of Miss Annersley's past is from (I think) _The New Chalet School_. (Which I could not find at the time of writing...)

The Doctor had been a million light years away (give or take), wrapped in thoughts of cosmic chess games, universal angst, and whether he preferred toasted tea-cakes or hot-buttered muffins, or if he didn’t enjoy either in this regeneration. (It was so hard to tell, and did it matter? Probably, to someone, somewhere. Raisin sellers, for instance. The muffin man, of course; the muffin man, who lived in Drury Lane).

However, his attention was drawn to the slight figure sitting opposite him in the railway carriage. Why he was currently travelling by steam train in the early years of the twentieth century was, as ever, a long and improbable story, but he hoped to find Ace at the terminus. He trusted that she wouldn’t blow up anything at the railway station, because he was rather fond of trains.

The girl was in her early teens, and while not exactly pretty, she had pleasing, open features. When she had entered, he had seen under the hat, two fairish plaits and steady grey eyes, but she had not looked at him since, and even given the circumstances, he found that odd (the awkward young man who had been with her had evidently decided that he was a safe sort of stranger, and not the dangerous kind - a mistake if ever there was one. At any rate, he had left the carriage and not yet returned).

The girl was staring out of the window, and he could see her mouth was set in a line. It wasn’t a sulky look; he suspected she was not the type to indulge in that sort of behaviour. She had a book in her lap, but though she clutched at it tightly, she had not made any real effort to read it. She remained very still, staring out of the window, watching the grey sky and green fields as they passed by.

“ _Faster than fairies, faster than witches_ ,” he murmured, leaning forward with a smile for her. “ _Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches, and charging along like troops in a battle._ ”

She turned her head, and paid attention to him for the first time.

“I always think of it when I’m on the train,” he said, by way of explanation. “Especially this time of the century. I’m the Doctor, and you are clearly in need of cake.”

The girl stopped. “Cake?”

“Yes,” he said, pulling a large piece of Christmas cake wrapped in tinfoil out of his pocket. “I’m always picking these things up from here and there, and I’ve never been fond of marzipan. Unconsidered trifles, as it were, but cake is less likely to make a mess of your pockets.”

She drew back. “Is this – are you teasing me?”

“Not at all,” he said, with his best smile. “And I don’t bite. Here.”

Cake was always a treat for a teenager away at school, and the girl hesitated, and then said, with unexpected grace for her age, “Thank you, sir, but I expect you should keep it for your friend.”

“You don’t travel hopefully, though,” he murmured, as he pushed it towards her, regardless of her words. It was not, of course, sensible to take cakes from strangers, and it wouldn’t be polite to eat in front of them, either. “I shall be meeting a friend. And you…?”

She looked down at the slice of fruit cake, and clearly seeing that she could not refuse, packed it away, guiltily, “Oh, there will be someone coming to meet me. It’s nice of you to ask, sir, but, honestly, you needn’t worry about that.”

“Hmm,” said the Doctor. He looked to the book. “You’re reading _Twelfth Night_?”

The girl clasped her hands around the small volume again. “It’s our set text.”

“Ah. Poor Will, he never expected his works to be used for examinations. He always laughed when I tried to warn him.”

There was a flicker of interest or amusement in her previously solemn grey eyes now. “I do like it,” she said, “only I – I wasn’t – I didn’t want to read anything just now.”

“Then something must be terribly wrong,” he responded. “You enjoy English, yes?”

“Literature is my favourite subject.”

“Little Miss Prunes and Prisms,” he said, lifting his eyebrows.

She coloured sharply. “I’m not. It’s jolly mean of you to say so!”

“Aha,” he said. “That’s better.”

She pushed back into her seat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude, Mr - ?”

“Not ‘sir’ – Doctor,” he said. “And you – do you have a name?”

She played with the pages of the book. “Hilda.”

“I know a funny story about the writing of that play, you know. Or at least, Will swore it was true when he told it to me, but then he was always a one for tall tales – well, as anyone can see.”

“You couldn’t have met Shakespeare,” she said, and he was seeing her more usual self now, he was pleased to see, the animation back in her clear face. “Now you really _are_ joking me.”

He smiled. “Oh? I couldn’t possibly be telling the truth, could I?”

“Well, you couldn’t, you know. You’d have to be ancient – hundreds of years old, like Methuselah!”

“So I would.”

Hilda frowned. “I’d hate to be rude, but you don’t seem much like – well – all the other grown ups.”

“I should think not. In that case, it couldn’t possibly matter if you told this silly old eccentric what the matter was, eh?”

She turned back to the window, placing a hand on it, and shook her head, closing her eyes.

“ _And here is a mill, and there is a river_ ,” he murmured. “ _Each a glimpse and gone forever._ ”

Hilda lowered her head; a tear escaping, although she was biting her lip to keep from giving way.

The Doctor stole the book with dexterous use of his brolly. “Can I read to you?”

“I expect you _can_ ,” she said, surprising him with a sudden, elderly air. “You mean _may_ you?”

“Yes, I expect I do. May I?”

She smothered an unexpected laugh. “I am sorry, Doctor. That’s what my form teacher always tells us. And it would be awfully kind of you, thank you. You don’t have to, though. I’d hate to be a nuisance.”

“Nothing of the sort. Now, where were you?” he asked, finding the place she had marked. “Aha: ‘ _Build me a willow cabin at your gate_ …’”

*

Alighting from the train, the Doctor watched Hilda being led away by the young man, who had at least returned in time to usher her out of the station.

“Poor thing,” said a woman, waiting on the station, following his gaze. “That’s the Annersley girl, you know. Her mother passed away, with the child at that boarding school, not knowing a thing was wrong till it was too late even to say goodbye. There goes that brother of hers – I’d like a word with the menfolk of that family. You’d think even a man would understand that a girl of that age would have to be told.”

The Doctor doffed his hat to her. “Yes,” he said. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

“Professor!” yelled an impatient voice from the side.

He swung round to greet Ace.

“What were you doing?” she asked. “I thought you said this was important.”

He smiled at her, and tapped her nose. “It is, but so are other things.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, cake, poetry, Shakespeare – the weapons with which one battles loneliness and grief…”

Ace shook her head at him, but put her arm through his. “Sometimes you’re completely round the bend, Professor.”

“Only sometimes?” he returned, with a smile, and a glint in his eye. “I must be slipping!”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [In The Wink Of An Eye (Each A Glimpse, And Gone Forever Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12117738) by [Elennare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elennare/pseuds/Elennare)




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